HEART -To HEART 
LETTERS 



"^m 



MARGARET BOTTOME 




CopightN°_ 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



HEART TO HEART 
LETTERS 



Heart to Heart 
Letters 



BEING EXTRACTS FROM THE 
LETTERS OF MARGARET 
BOTTOME TO A SON 




NEW YORK 
HODDER AND STOUGHTON 






Copyright, 1909, by 
George H. Doran Company 






THK PREMIER PRBSS 
NEW YORK 



^ 



iCI..A252755 



PREFACE 

WHILE I was at school and college, I re- 
ceived many letters from my mother, writ- 
ten in round hand, and such letters as any mother 
would write to any son. In 1875 I went to Eng- 
land to live, and from that date became the recip- 
ient of weekly letters. In course of time, her 
handwriting so strikingly altered as to reveal a 
new personality. A few sentences will explain 
the marvellous change, which came to her life, 
after she was well past forty. 

I was for many years her only son. I was 
born when she was in her early twenties. She 
made me her companion, when I was only eight 
years old. I worshiped her. We sang to- 
gether. She prayed out loud, before me. She 
took me to all the Church Services, in the Meth- 
odist churches, of which my father was the pas- 
tor. In those years she was a shy, reserved 
woman, terribly in earnest about her religion, but 
without peace. She tried to believe in God, as 
her Church believed in Him, in those days. I 
knew she held communion with invisible things. 
I could not guess what she saw, but I knew it 
was a vision beyond my ken. Now I know. 

Her self from God she could not free, 
She huilded better than she knew. 

It cost something to be a Mehodlst In those 
days, and she paid a top price. She was told it 
was her duty to speak in class meeting and to 

V 



HEART TO HEART LETTERS 

lead the singing, and I held her hand in class 
meeting, and I can hear the Leader say, "Sister 
Margaret, tell us what the Lord has done for 
your soul." She would spring up and, her face 
flushed with the effort, just softly reply, "The 
Lord is very gracious unto His servant." Never 
more than this in those far-off days. How blind 
I was. But not so dull as to mistake a knowl- 
edge of a force, which used to make my hand 
tingle as I held her hand in mine. She was pass- 
ing through a furnace of affliction. She took up 
the cross of a minister's wife, and tasted that 
peculiar vintage, which only those know, who 
experienced the narrowness and bigotry of the 
religious life of the fifties and sixties. All the 
time she was beating out the music of her woman's 
heart; and at long last, she quietly emerged from 
years of meditation and disillusion, of misunder- 
standing and prejudice, and entered into an ex- 
perience, which was to be as a fountain of living 
waters for the women of her age. She out- 
poured to me in her letters to England the drama 
of her widening life and influence. The women 
who had patronized her, in former years, now 
followed her lead. She had arrived! 

Year by year, she wrote to me, as she wrote to 
no one else, for we had our confidences, and she 
knew that I knew, and so she wrote as the spirit 
gave her utterance. But though I was too en- 
grossed with a new life, fully to appre- 
ciate them then, I kept them all, and 
now I know, that what was passing be- 

VI 



MARGARET B O T T O M E 

fore me as it had done all my life, was the 
making of a soul, for the revelation of God 
to her own generation. There are multitudes of 
women, who will agree to this, that they never 
heard her speak, in public or in private, without 
feeling a thrill of a strange vital force pass from 
her into their own hearts. For when she used 
voice or pen, it was a woman who knew, who 
wrote or spoke! Now if I was the only judge, 
I should hesitate to publish extracts from these 
letters, just because I am her son. But one of 
the greatest critics of English Letters and biog- 
raphy, Ernest Hartley Coleridge, gave me his 
opinion of them. I can see him now, as he said 
with the force of absolute conviction, "You have 
a treasure here the world must share." 

For some years, I have kept my treasure-trove 
close. But now that my brothers have shared 
my joy, in reading and editing them, it would be 
selfish in me to refuse to share them, not only 
with those who knew and loved her personally, 
but with that wide circle of men and women who 
knew her through her writings. I agree with my 
brothers' view, that only extracts should be given, 
and that matters personal to me and to my fam- 
ily should not be published. And even now I 
print but few of them ; and amongst these one or 
two written to my oldest daughter. Few as they 
are, they speak for themselves. They ring true. 
They touch one with the pressure which sets the 
lights aflame in the room, and reveals the hidden 
things. 

VII 



HEART TO HEART LETTERS 

Who writes letters now? Such letters? Do 
you know anyone who sits down and writes long, 
intimate, stirring letters, to people whom they 
have never met, but who have begged for a letter, 
as they would for a cup of cold water when 
athirst. This was her labour of love for many 
years. Now the hand, often so tired, writes no 
more. The tender loving voice is not heard. 
Yet she still speaks; I would fain believe that; 
speaks from lips who heard her message, and 
translated it into their own speech and action. 
Here as I write these words, revisiting the city 
which she knew from slums to palaces, as I feel 
the electric atmosphere of this nerve-destroying 
civilization, see the faces which vibrate to the 
swift erratic pulse of the times, I say to myself, 
let me at least bring back the memory of one who 
seeing it as we see it now, saw also, more clearly 
and with abiding joy, the things which make for 
peace. I see the high buildings, the swift mov- 
ing of the population, here and there; I see the 
wealth, and pride, and organization, and mate- 
rial strength, but these things, great as they are, 
were not the source of this nation's greatness. 
Those springs rose in Walden Pond and the 
House of Seven Gables, in Emerson's home, in 
the shades of peace where Whittier and Long- 
fellow and their little brotherhood lived, wrought, 
suffered and triumphed; in the little parsonages 
up and down the land, where the Puritan tradi- 
tion held sway. 

I wish to share with my brothers this privi- 

VIII 



MARGARET B O T T O M E 

lege, of bringing to a wider circle, some of these 
rare and vital thoughts from her letters. These 
Personalities whose hands wrought at our tasks, 
whose hearts agonized and triumphed in the 
very problems we try to solve, come to us, in 
their writings, with a rare comradeship. They 
are like deep silent wells, unthought of in the 
busy fields, where men gather the harvest; await- 
ing the hour, when they come in to slake their 
thirst, and let down the bucket, for those cooling 
waters which never fail to inspire and console. 
They bid us be brave and press forward, tread- 
ing where they trod, upheld by the same sustain- 
ing grace. 

To no self-satisfied, and self-centered person 
will one word in these letters appeal. But if 
anyone in the struggle, in the dead set of the 
tide of a lower life asks, "How did they win 
through," here are some words from one who 
had sounded the depths, and found anchorage in 
the Father's Will, the Son's Love, the Spirit's 
quickening Power. 

William McDonald Bottome, 



IX 



HEART TO HEART LETTERS 



MARGARET B O T T O M E 

IT is as mild as spring, and the sky is so beauti- 
fully blue. No, I do not think it easy to live 
on both sides of the Atlantic, but I do believe that 
those who are separated by the wide sea, may live 
above land and sea, and be like eagles: mount 
up with wings as eagles! O how quietly they 
fly above the earth, and on earthly things look 
down! The Son of Man, which is in Heaven, 
He hved here, and yet He was in Heaven. O, 
there are heights and depths we have not yet at- 
tained unto ! I seem these days to be growing 
down ; I am like the roots stretching underground 
for water. It becomes more and more clear to 
me that our one need is God. Those old lines of 
Charles Wesley are more than ever to me. 

Give me Thyself, from every boast, 
From every wish set free; — 
Let all I am in Thee be lost, 
But give Thyself to me ! 



HEART TO HEART LETTERS 

FOR so many years I "stuck to it" that the trou- 
ble was with the inside machinery, if we were 
not happy. I have said to your father more 
times than I can count, "No, if we are not happy 
under these circumstances, we would not be 
happy under other circumstances. It is the self, 
the selfish self that makes the trouble." Self is 
the irksome weight. 

'Tis we, not they, who are at fault 
When others seem so wrong. 

All this I am surer of to-day than ever: our one 
need is God. We need the truth that lies behind 
the words: Thou in me, and I in Thee; a full- 
ness of love. We are made for love; it is the 
only thing worth living for; and outside of the 
perfect love of God, we shall starve. 



MARGARET B O T T O M E 

WE are here on this earth to do the will of 
God. It isn't to have a Church, unless that 
is the will of God. It isn't this or that or any- 
thing else, but to do the will of God. I have a 
feehng that you are passing through unusual trials. 
Now turn from the outward to the inward. As I 
look back, I can see how closely I held myself to 
the condition of my own heart in the sight of God, 
and of course everything was small compared 
with that. What I am in His sight, is a business. 
Experimental religion is the one thing needful; 
God is the one necessity. What a lovely day this 
has been ! rainy outside, but so beautiful within. 
I cannot finish my letter : my hand gives out. 



HEART TO HEART LETTERS 

IT Is often true that those we call worldly 
people, show far more of what has been called 
the "milk of human kindness" than those from 
whom we might naturally expect it. There 
should be more discrimination in this matter of 
gifts, and the Bible rules are unheeded by those 
who talk most of the Bible. We are to give to 
those who cannot requite us; and then there Is 
such danger of our withholding the little 
things, because they are so little, when love 
would make them valuable. St. Augustine said, 
love is your weight. As the years go on, this 
whole matter of what we call religion (or better, 
Christianity) Is so simplified In my mind and 
Wesley was right. Christian perfection should be 
sought ; kt us go on unto perfection. 



MARGARET B O T T O M E 

MY "word" for the Talk I give to-morrow is 
acquaint thyself with Him and he at peace; 
thereby good shall come to thee. Only one ac^ 
quaintance can insure us perfect peace, perpetual 
good, and how few seem to be interested to be- 
come acquainted with Him? Time is used for 
everybody, for everything, except the cultivation 
of acquaintance with God; and yet this is life 
eternal, to know Him ! In my childhood, I knew 
a very old and very illiterate man, who hardly 
ever said but one thing, O do get acquainted with 
God! O do get acquainted with God! And the 
echo of those words has never left me. How 
well I remember the house we lived in then; it 
had an old-fashioned garret, and by a small win- 
dow, on a bit of carpet, I had my chair. And on 
a little table were my Bible, and Thomas a Kem- 
pis' Imitation of Christ. And there I used to 
spend hours, getting "better acquainted" with 
God! 



HEART TO HEART LETTERS 

I AM so Impressed at this time with the 
"weight" of ourselves; rather than of what we 
have done. I know / must be a success before 
God, and that Is no little thing. It Is no little 
thing to be true; true to what you know Is true. 
Beecher once said that all the steps upward did 
not count, If the last step was not taken. Some- 
one said, "I don't see that, Mr. Beecher." 
"Well," said he, "if you jump and just miss It, 
what becomes of the jumpf Wasn't that like 
Beecher? Now I am thinking of God's scales: 
they are unerring: what you are; and If we are 
wanting In ourselves, It Is an eternal want. If we 
have Christ, we do not want; and He only can 
meet that deep want. 



MARGARET B O T T O M E 

THE word "amusement" seems to me to be 
used so much more than it used to be, as if 
it were the end of life. And the word *'vaca- 
tion" is to me a modern word. I cannot get 
accustomed to it. All the vacations I had for 
forty years, as a wife and mother, were in going 
to Camp Meeting for about ten days each year, 
and if I had ten dollars to spend, I was rich. 
When I reached the Camp I worked hard, from 
morning till night, and heard no such words as 
"amusement" and "vacation." 



HEART TO HEART LETTERS 

WE start for home to-morrow ; and I go back 
on my way to health, I trust. The rheu- 
matism is not worth speaking about. I walk as 
straight as anybody but I take no romantic walks, 
you may be sure. I am commanded to do what 
Walt Whitman advised : loaf and invite my soul. 
An old minister I met the other day said: "If 
you have rheumatism, don't pet it: there is noth- 
ing it likes so much as to have attention paid to 
it." I shall be too busy on our return to pay it 
much attention: we have got to get to house- 
keeping. 



MARGARET B O T T O M E 

THERE are times when I feel I cannot go to 
funerals. Very few funerals seem to be 
Christian or human; I should like one or the 
other! How dreadfully mixed things are. I 
shall be so glad when that which is in part shall 
be done away; and that which is perfect shall 
have come. But my faith triumphs. I read to- 
day that Mr. Moody, when a young minister In 
Chicago, was Invited to attend a funeral. So 
he took his New Testament to see what Jesus 
did at funerals, and he found that every funeral 
He attended, He broke up! Life broke up 
death ! 



HEART TO HEART LETTERS 

YOU see I am not away from home now, and 
really if my feet were not painful, I should 
be just the same as ever, "flying about." I have 
been thinking this morning of those words, He 
will keep the feet of His Saints. I asked George 
about it yesterday; but he repHed, "the emphasis 
is on the Saints. "Well," I said, "I was think- 
ing of that too," and then I saw the laughter in 
his eyes. However I think I understand it bet- 
ter now. Feet stand for service. Where have 
my feet loved to go ? To church, to prayer meet- 
ing, to camp meetings. Now why may I not 
think He will keep the interests, which the service 
of my feet indicated? There is a ministry in pain, 
as well as a mystery of pain. 



lO 



MARGARET B O T T O M E 

1AM thankful for my hand this morning, be- 
cause it means to me that I can still hold a pen. 
Once these hands held you, undressed you; but 
that is, how many years ago? The Doctor said 
to me the other day, ''I wish I could put you back 
fifty years." I wondered he did not think of me 
fifty years hence! O! I should like to see my- 
self fifty years from now. What a pity we do 
not live more in the future ! Everybody talks of 
houses; going to have them "fixed up;" going to 
move into something better; but so few seem to 
be anticipating the Father's House. Think how 
beautiful it must be. Let us live in Him more 
definitely now; then we shall live with Him here- 
after in His House ! 



II 



HEART TO HEART LETTERS 

GOD has given you what not "one in a thou- 
sand" have; facilities for education, hearts 
that love you; those who trust in you and hope 
in you, as well as for you. I know you have 
much to struggle against. I know the inspired 
penman says, man is fearfully and wonderfully 
made, but it does seem to me that some natures 
are more fearfully and wonderfully made than 
others, and yet it is these very natures that can 
be so wonderful for humanity, if they only over- 
come. O, what a word that is, and yet only 
those who overcome are crowned, and crowned 
here! Crowns are made here and worn here, 
if they are worn anywhere. So buckle on the 
armor; fight the good fight of faith; faith in God; 
His help. His Presence in you. Not outside you 
merely, but work out the God in you. Every 
noble impulse, every desire to be grand, to be 
good, is God in you. 



12 



MARGARET B O T T O M E 

THIS is the anniversary of my marriage. 
Fifty-three years ago today I was married, 
and I am here at Ocean Grove, and I might as 
well be here as at any other place. I have no 
one that I can talk to, about that beautiful Sep- 
tember afternoon. If I hadn't a beautiful faith, 
I would be sad, but my faith "shuts out." I be- 
lieve my dear ones are on a fairer shore than 
this, and that I am on the way to meet them ; and 
while the storm is sweeping this coast, I am say- 
ing, "no storm can reach my inmost calm." 
There is a wedding day ahead, which is indeed 
the wedding day; and all other wedding days are 
only a figure of that true wedding. 



13 



HEART TO HEART LETTERS 

I SAID in an address I made this afternoon, 
that Christ's picture of humanity was true. A 
few words tell it, but they are tremendous: 
Robbed! Wounded! Stripped! Left half 
dead! — that is a picture of humanity. Now upon 
this scene comes Christ to "take care" of this 
wounded, stripped, half dead humanity; bring- 
ing with Him oil, wine, bandages, and binding 
up. He said He was sent to bind up but some- 
how we do not expect Him to do it. Then He 
said when He gave the man over to his fellow 
men, 'take care of him.' He does take care of 
us. What a picture is His parable of His own 
divine compassion! 



14 



MARGARET B O T T O M E 

WE are face to face with great problems here. 
The Church (sad as it sounds) does not 
meet the need; and that need is salvation from 
sin. You have prayers you repeat, but who ex- 
pects the prayer Vouchsafe to keep us this day 
without sin to be answered? I shall never forget 
hearing a Methodist minister say, forty years 
ago, that the masterpiece of Satan is in getting 
professing Christians to disbelieve that they can 
be saved from sin! When St. Paul said so long 
ago therefore being free from sin, ye have fruit 
unto righteousness, he meant it. But something 
must come to us before we believe it. We shall 
have to have another Pentecost. There Is an 
absence of belief in the power of the Holy Ghost. 



IS 



HEART TO HEART LETTERS 

I AM on "old Long Island's sea girt shore." 
The spiritual life is so much more to me than 
any other life, that I shall have the experience of 
what came to me last night, long after everything 
else is forgotten. The truth was so real to me 
in the night, when the moan of the ocean was in 
my ears (for I am right on the ocean here) : 
"like the sea which cannot rest." And it was so 
plain to me ; no matter what one has, or what one 
has not, without having God, we cannot rest. 
Rest in the Lord! You cannot rest in circum- 
stances. You cannot rest in any creature. If 
you do, you are liable to be disturbed. There is 
an ideal life which I am sure we may have, of 
seeing God in everything. Whittier saw God 
when he saw the white caps, that are so beautiful 
this afternoon, and he called them the white- 
winged messengers, hastening to prayers, and he 
added: 

They kneel upon the sloping sand 
As bends the human knee, 
A beautiful and tireless band, 
The priesthood of the sea. 

One feels like saying: 

Waves of God's boundless sea of love, 
O come and wash my shore! 



i6 



MARGARET B O T T O M E 

AS I listen to the critics on every side, I say, 
Yes! I cannot touch you, but there is a sea 
which perhaps you may never have reached: the 
sea of the inner spiritual life, one that is not de- 
pendent on mere scholarship or intellectual 
thought; it is the child life of the spirit. Mind 
you, I do not say that neither men of science nor 
scholars have this life, but it is a life that is 
guided by the laws of grace. I am glad these 
days that I was brought up a Methodist and in 
the doctrines of Methodism: the witness of the 
Spirit, the knowledge of the forgiveness of sins, 
the being filled with love. There is enough of 
the Bible left for me, after all which the critics 
take. Christ said, have faith in God. It is God 
I want to know, and no man, by understanding, 
can find out God. It is the pure in heart who 
see Him; it is with the heart that man believeth 
unto righteousness! 



17 



HEART TO HEART LETTERS 

THIS little roof garden where I write, seems 
a fitting figure of my life at this time. On 
the top of everything, the flowers are in bloom. 
I seem to have everything: I abound! The 
shadows here flee away, very largely. I don't 
want to give you the idea that all that I have 
today, I have as a reward of merit! Far from 
it. As an old friend said when he came to die, 
I cannot stand on my past record! I can say 
that too; but still over all, and under all, is the 
mercy of God, the tenderness, the loving kind- 
ness, the forgiving love! "O how merciful, how 
pitiful, the Lord has been to me." I do love that 
old hymn: 

God of my life, whose gracious power 
Through varied deaths my soul has led, 
And turned aside the fatal hour, 
And lifted up my sinking head! 

All I can do is to bless His holy Name I 



i8 



MARGARET B O T T O M E 

I THOUGHT I would not write my Christmas 
Letter on the dark-edged paper; the white and 
gold seems so much more appropriate. 

They are all robed in spotless white 
And conquering palms they bear! 

The past and future have so blended at this 
Christmas time, that I have gone through the 
present as if there was no present, or as if the 
past and future were present with me. Of 
course I am reaping what I have sown. I think 
one gets accustomed to looking at the things 
which are not seen, through the mere habit of 
looking at them. Today he has what we can- 
not even imagine; he is the rich one today! 



19 



HEART TO HEART LETTERS 

I MUST get Pilgrim's Progress and read again 
about Pilgrim coming in sight of the Delect- 
able Mountains, because I think I must be there. 
I am constantly looking forward. I am really 
acting out what has been an ideal with me. I 
have seen so many gloomy Christians, and I have 
said to myself, Why, I should think, if God has 
given their loved ones Paradise, and they are on 
their way to join them, they would want to make 
this world as bright as possible for those who 
have to stay here. And this is more real now 
to me than ever. For months before your Father 
went, I lived on this: / am the Life, and when 
the change came, that men call death, I had only 
to pass on to and he that liveth and believeth in 
me shall never die. There I stopped, and there 
Hive I 



^0 



MARGARET B O T T O M E 

DO you know this passage, the mountains shall 
bring peace? I have seen a sight this morn- 
ing I shall never see again, when I leave these 
Alps, till I 

Summer high in Heaven 
Among the Hills of God. 

I wakened long before daylight. I thought of 
Mt. Blanc as I saw him yesterday, in his white- 
ness that is never tarnished, always white, though 
the whiteness leaves his kindred hills, his 
smaller brethren. No change ever comes to Mt. 
Blanc ! As I thought of it all, such a desire to be 
white and clean came to me, and to be kept clean, 
and with it such a sense of my sinfulness. And 
never in my life did I pray, more truly, as my 
heart uttered the words I had so often sung. Wash 
me and make me thus thine own. And then I 
thought of that perfect Atonement, and of the 
Blood that cleanseth. My head had been buried 
in the pillow, and I had not noticed that it had 
become day. Just then a little bird began to 
sing, and as I reached the window the sun was 
kissing the face of Mt. Blanc, and the chimes 
began to play and as I leaned my head on the 
window, and saw the sun touch one after another 
of those wonderful Alps, my heart said. 

And I shall walk in soft white light, 
With Kings and Priests abroad. 
And I shall summer high in heaven, 
Among the Hills of God. 

21 



H EART TO HEART LETTERS 

O! OUR beautiful faith! Our dead die not. 
I know that death is not blessed; but blessed 
are the dead, and blessed are they who have their 
blessed dead. It is refreshing to see what I read 
a few moments ago: ''Know of a truth that only 
the time shadows have perished or are perish- 
able ; that the real being of whatever is, and what- 
ever was, and whatever will be, is, even now and 
forever. This should it (unhappily) seem new, 
thou mayest ponder at thy leisure for the next 
twenty years or the next twenty centuries. Be- 
lieve it! Thou must understand, if thou cans' t 
not." So said Carlyle. 



22 



MARGARET B O T T O M E 

MY friends have wondered that I could en- 
dure it, to let you go away from me. They 
do not know the springs of my life. All my 
fresh springs are in Thee, the Psalmist said, and 
so can I. I could not see you leave me, the son 
on whom I had expected to lean, and be to me 
what I had so longed for, if it were not for the 
truth behind the motto you once gave me : the 
love of Christ constraineth me. For His sake, I 
give you up. I have no language to express the 
unutterable longing I have, that you will do for 
Christ the work your Mother has so often longed 
to do. Make Him known to a dying world! 
No human learning, no human gifts will suffice. 
Nothing, nothing less than the baptism of Fire, 
will lit you for your work, and make yours a 
burning ministry! 



23 



HEART TO HEART LETTERS 

SOMEBODY says the meanest record of thy- 
self has worth. Your father came in a few 
moments ago with a basket full of letters, and 
among them some letters of mine, written thirty 
years ago. I smiled as I looked at this sentence 
written in a letter to your father: "If you look 
after Christ's interests, He will look after 
yours;'' and only early this morning, I had the 
same thought. Those old letters breathe the 
air of devotion to Christ. I was then a little 
over twenty. How strange it seemed to handle 
those old letters; and to be introduced to my old 
self. A whole generation has passed since then. 
The letters did me good and will help me. 



24 



MARGARET B O T T O M E 

THIS is the eve of Thanksgiving. There are 
times when I feel about twenty, and there are 
times when I feel a little older; and the quiet of 
my room is very delightful to me, and anniver- 
sary days are days when, if I do not thereby les- 
sen the enjoyment of others, I like to be alone. 
All the same, I assure you this is a day of devout 
Thanksgiving with me. I am thankful for all 
that God has given to your father. What it must 
be to have Paradise, I must wait a little while to 
know. To see the Face that makes Paradise; 
to see the faces of those one has so dearly loved, 
what must it be! I am thankful I have my 
Faith; I am thankful I have the Comforter; and 
I certainly have Him. So I am full of Thanks- 
giving at this anniversary time: but it is all the 
outcome of a Past; everything was leading up to 
this. 



25 



HEART TO HEART LETTERS 

1 THINK there is such danger in depending 
upon God, and yet in some way (it may seem 
only a little thing) being disloyal to conscience. 
No matter how we pray, or trust in God, we shall 
be wrecked, if we are disloyal to the "man within" 
as the Indians call conscience. There is some 
reason why we do not come into the Harbour for 
which we were built. That Harbour is God, and 
never till we are in communion and fellowship 
with Him, are we fulfilling our destiny. He 
?tiade us for Himself, and the soul has no home 
but the bosom of God; and to come into fellow- 
ship with Him, there must be a "clearing of our- 
selves." It is interesting to see how nature is 
studied, how to address nature, as they say. The 
wire is placed so that the lightning can reach it; 
the factories are built so as to have the advantage 
of the river; the one thing seems to be how to get 
in position, so that our little power can come into 
connection with a greater power. 



26 



MARGARET B O T T O M E 

I WRITE from the summit of Mt. Washington. 
This is one of the supreme hours of my life. 
No language can portray my emotions : very few 
are here with me (in spirit) in this awful soli- 
tude and on this wonderful height. The clouds 
are all beneath me, and I have just come down 
from the signal station, and the master had a 
peculiar fascination for me, as he stood by his 
instrument, measuring the wind. It is as cold 
now as in the depth of winter, and the wind is 
blowing a gale. How much this would be to 
you. I am on the heights at last; and I saw what 
few have seen this whole season; a gorgeous sun- 
set. We were up so high that all the clouds were 
below us and formed a sea, (like "a sea of glass 
mingled with fire") and the grand mountains 
were under our feet; and peak by peak we could 
look down upon. Then after a few hours' sleep 
I saw the sun rise, and it rose on the ocean. The 
clouds were again as a beautiful sea ; and at dawn 
I looked out and saw what was coming. The 
moon was shining, and the stars so near me. At 
seven we began the descent; and the trees near 
the summit were so pitiful to behold. The 
storms have done their work; finally they have 
become ghostly white; and the boughs all bend 
down instead of up; and some trees are torn up 
by the roots; and others have fallen into each 
other's arms as if in final despair. And all this 
is on the way to the heights! I cannot write 
more; it is too much for me. 

27 



HEART TO HEART LETTERS 

YES ! It is true ! Narrow is the way that lead- 
eth unto life; but O, how magnificently broad 
Life is when you get to it. I don't believe it is 
possible to have what you want, what you cannot 
be satisfied without, unless there is a forsaking of 
all to have Him ! No, we must settle one thing : 
do we want God? And He says, You shall find 
Me when you seek for Me with all your heart. 
All you desire is before you; and more than you 
dream of; but there is no other way to it than by 
an entire consecration of all. And that is merely 
clearing the track! Self must get out of the way 
to make room for God. And your life will be a 
failure, and you will be sensible that you are a 
failure, until this be done. What alone will sat- 
isfy this world is an intensely earnest man; de- 
voted to one thing ; and everything else only help- 
ing on that one thing. 



MARGARET B O T T O M E 

SANTA Claus stays longer in some families 
than in others and I don't believe in hurrying 
his removal. But the time finally comes when 
the child says, ''Now I know what you mean by 
Santa Claus," and often it looks as if most of our 
life was a kind of childhood; until at last we say 
to our Father, "I know what you mean," and we 
find out, as our children do, that Santa Claus 
means God. I have a belief these days in "Slow- 
ness." You cannot "hurry up" some things. He 
that believeth shall not make haste; such haste 
shows lack of Faith. One of the lessons of the 
Incarnation is the length of time that elpased be- 
tween the Promise and its Fulfillment. The 
Coming One ! how long they waited for Him ! 
And yet how impatient we are to see the fulfill- 
ment of our ideals. Yet they will all be realized, 
and it is such a mercy to have them. 



29 



HEART TO HEART LETTERS 

IN one sense your school days are over, and yet 
you will find life a school, and of course some 
hard lessons. But you will have companions in 
study, and ever and anon you will get prizes for 
your hard struggle to get your lessons perfectly. 
And whatever you may think of college honors, 
you must make up your mind at your entrance 
into this school of life, that only to those who 
hy patient continuance in well doing seek for 
glory, honor and immortality, will the prize, 
Eternal Life, be given ! And we do not do this 
fighting in an uncertain way, as they who beat the 
air. We know what we are about, we mean to 
have honor; the honor that cometh from God; 
we mean to conquer and graduate with the high- 
est rank; and the music will be furnished from 
the skies, on that Graduation Day! 



30 



MARGARET B O T T O M E 

THERE is nothing at this time of my life that 
I feel more the need of cultivating, than 
"cheerful hope." Nothing seems more needed 
than hopefulness; a looking on the bright side, 
and it is much better for me to enter into your 
joy and be glad over what you have, even though 
I may not possess it also. 

What matters, mine or another's day? 
So the right word be said, and Life the sweeter 
made ! 

I may not live to see some things, but they are 
coming. God is Love is my text these days! 



31 



MARGARET B O T T O M E 

I MUST tell you of a capital illustration which 
Harry gave me this morning. He wanted to 
know what the Revolutionary War meant, and 
I told him as simply as I could tell him. And he 
astonished me so, when in answer to his question, 
''Which won?" he gave such a cry of joy: Hur- 
rah! and laughed immoderately, as if the victory 
had just been accomplished. He believed what 
I told him! O, I thought, if people would only 
believe in the work done on the Cross (our vic- 
tory!) ; would only believe, as this little child be- 
lieved in the victory of long ago; what joy would 
fill the Church! 



32 



MARGARET B O T T O M E 

THE older I grow, the more spirit becomes to 
me. Our Order of the King's Daughters is 
a spirit, and if that idea be lost, all that makes it 
of best consequence is gone. It means that what- 
soever you do, do it in His Name. It is de- 
signed to bring up all of life onto this spiritual 
plane. And this is the reason for the absence 
of age-line, color-line, creed-line, social-lines; all 
here are merged into the love of Christ. In His 
Name ! Keep emphasizing the spirit of the 
Order. God is the Father of all; and we are all 
His children. 



33 



HEART TO HEART LETTERS 

DID you ever think of disappointment as a 
gift? We may not see all the blessedness 
of it till the Veil is lifted, and we shall know why. 
I believe that in every disappointment is wrapped 
up our highest glory, for Christ in us is the hope 
of glory, and but for disappointment many would 
never have come to Him. But for God's plough- 
share of pain and suffering that breaks us all to 
pieces, the seed might never grow. Do you re- 
member Miss Waring's lines? 

I will give thanks for suffering now, 

For want, and toil, and loss, 

For the death that sin made hard and slow 

Upon my Saviour's Cross. 



34 



MARGARET B O T T O M E 

I SPENT a night at Newburg this week. I had 
often before crossed the Hudson in a boat, 
but until now no boat had had an upper deck. 
As I passed over the gang-plank, I saw near the 
stairs a notice in large letters: Upper Deck. 
So up I went, and there I found such a wonderful 
view of Storm King. The whole range of beau- 
tiful mountains, and all the glorious river were 
before me. I could look up and down, because 
I was on the upper deck. I took the lesson for 
my own, and said, 'T will keep on the upper deck, 
that is the place for me; / get the views there F^ 



35 



HEART TO HEART LETTERS 

IT greatly impresses me to find that both the 
evil tongue and the good tongue are repre- 
sented in the Bible by the strong figure of jire. 
The evil tongue is set on fire of hell. The good 
tongue is set on fire of heaven. This dispensa- 
tion was ushered in under the symbol of a tongue 
of fire: it sat on each of them. "The three 
golden threads of domestic happiness, out of 
which it is woven are, to repress a harsh answer; 
to confess a fault; to stop (right or wrong) in 
arguing in self-defense.'* The tongue can kill 
in an instant. And there are deaths, where no 
burial succeeds. But if the tongue be a deadly 
poison: even it can be made life-giving; for it 
may be set on fire of heaven! 



36 



MARGARET B O T T O M E 

AT seventy, I am In close touch with young 
people. If you could be with me now; you 
would find a younger woman than when you saw 
me last. And I want you to be as young as I 
am now, when you are seventy. And of course 
you must begin at once ; or continue, If you have 
begun. I think, looking back over my life, I 
have been "content with such things as I had," 
and this saves one from losing one*s youth. 
Somehow I have always found a sunny side to 
everything; and I insisted on it with myself, that 
if I could not be happy under one set of circum- 
stances, the trouble must be with the Inside ma- 
chinery. I had to get that In order, and I believe 
that had much to do with my youth today. If 
now you are in the least unhappy, say to yourself, 
the trouble is within: I will be happy; I will 
live in the sunshine! 



37 



HEART TO HEART LETTERS 

I LOVE so to follow the history of that first 
Holy Week. Twice or thrice He went to 
Bethany. Phillips Brooks says: "You are 
marked in your character by the things you can 
do without; and the things you cannot do with- 
out." I cannot do without the marks in His 
hands and feet (He showed them!). I cannot 
do without Christ in His Death. My sins need 
the wounds, His wounds, though I have no theory 
of the atonement. No subject has ever per- 
plexed me so much, and I am convinced that only 
the Spirit of Truth can make plain what the soul 
needs. The way it is often put has never taken 
hold upon me. All I know is, I cannot do with- 
out His Death. 

The wounds of Jesus, for my sin, 
Before the world's foundation slain, 
Whose mercy shall unshaken stay 
When heaven and earth are fled away I 



38 



MARGARET B O T T O M E 

I OFTEN see you as you were when a little 
child. Far off as you are now, of course I 
miss you ; and yet I am glad I do not need to miss 
you in the deepest sense; for yoii are with me. 
I am glad you "idealize" your mother; and after 
all the ideal is the true. Few see us at our best. 
I am thankful we both have the power to ideal- 
ize; It smooths many a rough place. I read in 
my girlhood a poem I have not seen for years; 
and so cannot quote it. It was an invocation, 
on the part of the poetess, to the spirit of poetry, 
not to leave her. If the spirit did depart, brooks 
would be only brooks, and stones only stones! 
Let the true spirit continue to move us both! 



39 



HEART TO HEART LETTERS 

IT is very clear to me that to live apart from 
God is to be worldly. There is no safety in 
separating anything from God. Sorrow be- 
comes worldly as well as joy, if it be not con- 
nected with God. And in the New Testament, 
the world is put as one of the three powers at 
enmity with God. As I have studied it, the fear- 
fulness of this spirit of the world never seemed so 
dreadful. And it is everywhere like an atmos- 
phere; as surely going to church as anywhere 
else; secreting itself as truly under a plain garb, 
as under a rich one. In the time of Christ, the 
worldly people were the Pharisees (the leading 
members of the Jewish Church) and He did not 
say to them, search the Scriptures; for that was 
their business; but, "ye search the Scriptures and 
you do not find MeP* 



40 



MARGARET B O T T O M E 

I FEEL the necessity these days of individual 
piety. I am a distinct individuality; I must 
give an account of myself to God. And then I 
must have my work for God; the work He has 
given me to do. There are so many different 
kinds of work; and it is a great comfort to know 
what to do. We never learn what we can do, 
save by working. It is not genius, it is not even 
great scholarship that "does it"; it is downright 
hard work. There is no one truth of the Bible 
more deeply burnt into my consciousness than 
this: give and it shall he given unto you, I get 
in myself by simply giving. 



4t 



HEART TO HEART LETTERS 

I HEARD a minister say once, that Christ in all 
His painful life only said, Why, once; and we 
need never have that to say : Why hast Thou for- 
saken me? We have begun our last year in this 
place. I intend (God helping me), this year, to 
think less of place, and more of Him, and to 
work for Him just where He places me, and do 
the thing He gives me to do. When we reahze 
the truth of the words: Thou, Lord, hast been 
our dwelling place in all generations, we think 
less and less of other places. If my soul is only 
at home on the bosom of God, I shall be satis- 
fied. 



42 



MARGARET B O T T O M E 

I SEE the necessity for believing strongly what 
you do believe. Weak believers make skep- 
tics; the wonder is we have not made more. I 
tell you when people begin to think (not many 
do!) then look out! I am sure we cannot keep 
too close to the Sermon on the Mount. I am 
more and more persuaded that what we need is 
to live out that sermon; and to preach it. Per- 
haps if more who preach it, had lived it, not so 
many ministers would today be mourning the 
skepticism of their sons. Well, the battle wages, 
and we must stand to our posts; and above all 
we must have faith in God, practical everyday 
faith; the same when off our knees, as when on 
them! 



43 



HEART TO HEART LETTERS 

I NEED not tell you how much I want to see 
you, and talk with you. After all, there is so 
much one can say that one cannot write; and you 
know I am at no loss in the way of talking! It 
seems my business these days. I think I know 
two things; human need, and Divine help. I 
think the great need of human hearts is a Com- 
forter, and I know Christ is the Person we need. 
I think few know Him, as they need to know 
Him. I think many who preach Him, do not 
know Him. I have, in my work, a fact to build 
on and I am never at a loss! Human suffering 
is a fact, and there is so much suffering, where it 
is never suspected. 



44 



MARGARET B O T T O M E 

GOOD-BYE, my dear granddaughter! and be 
good; be brave; be self-denying. The One 
Perfect Example is ever before us. He was per- 
fect! All through Europe I saw the Cross, and 
of course it always means, whether we see it or 
not, voluntary self-sacrifice. The Cross must be 
ours; we must bear the Cross; we must die on 
our cross to sin and suffering. There is no noble 
life but just here. Read the "Imitation." I 
loved Thomas a Kempis when I was your age. 
I want you to be a grand daughter; so much 
grander than I have ever been; only determine 
to be a saint ; and everything will be arranged for 
you to become one. 



45 



HEART TO HEART LETTERS 

ST. PAUL said to his Corinthian friends, / 
determined with myself that I would not come 
again to you in heaviness; for, if I make you 
sorry, who is he that maketh me glad, hut the 
same which is made sorry by me? He put his 
WILL into this matter of cheerfulness ; and what 
you will, you are. If there are Alps, then a will 
can make a way through them. There shall be 
no Alps ! O ! the power of an invincible will. 
All the difference between men is just here. One 
talent, with a will, will do what ten talents, with- 
out it, could never do. If St. Paul was down- 
hearted, he would not cast the shadow on those 
from whom he needed cheerfulness. Who would 
make him glad, if he made them sorry? We 
cannot overrate this matter of cheerfulness; it is 
sunshine; and no man had more to contend 
against than had St. Paul. I too am determined 
that people shall not "catch" heaviness from me; 
"cheerfulness" is equally contagious! 



46 



MARGARET B O T T O M E 

EMERSON says, "Our tokens of love are for 
the most part barbarous, cold and lifeless, be- 
cause they do not represent our life. The only 
gift Is a portion of thyself. Therefore let the 
farmer give his corn; the miner, a gem; the sailor, 
coral and shells; the painter, a picture; and the 
poet, his poem." But this does not cover all the 
ground. Any gift that brings the giver with It, 
Is full of love; so I cannot tell you how I felt 
when I saw your gift. 



HEART TO HEART LETTERS 

LIFE Is too real and sad with me, for me to 
contend about much save the "faith once de- 
livered to the saints." I think much less of what 
I am to say than of what I am to be. One thing 
I am decided upon: I will not talk about that 
which is not real and vital to me. Life is a ter- 
ribly real thing to some people, and they are on 
a wild sea which will take a living Christ to 
"still" into a calm. And I have received my 
commission fresh from God; — I have heard the 
words, Help those women, and I expect to do it; 
for I shall take to them a Christ Who Is helping 
me! 



48 



MARGARET B O T T O M E 

IN regard to talking of Him, and calling Him 
byname; there we see differently. It would 
be impossible for me to love a person, and not 
want to speak of him by name. And Christ to 
me is as human a being as you are; as certainly 
a man; and the joy of His religion is that He 
can adapt Himself to the need of a little child and 
help the child learn his lessons! And yet He is 
not only man, but God! I am afraid that not 
all who preach the Incarnation take it practically 
that God has been manifested in human flesh, 
and that a Man is on the throne of the universe. 
And yet if He were only my King; if the King 
had not, in His effort to get near us, called Him- 
self by every endearing name that love could sug- 
gest; He could never meet my need; and that is 
just what He proposes to do : supply all my need. 



49 



HEART TO HEART LETTERS 

I DO not think there is a person worth talking 
about continually, save our Lord Jesus Christ. 
If we acted what we sing about in hymns, we 
could not cease speaking about Him by name. 
What people want is to see Jesus: and when the 
love of Jesus fires the heart; out of the abundance 
of the heart will the mouth speak. What we 
need Is the love of Jesus, so that we shall speak 
of Him as the early disciples did, though they 
went to prison for it. The Church of Jesus 
Christ today Is taken up with about everything 
else but her risen Lord at her side. No, I will 
acknowledge all sorts of failure, but what I need 
is more of what you condemn, and the baptism 
of the Holy Ghost and of fire will make me de- 
clare: / will know nothing among men but Him. 
And what we know Is what we talk about ! Why 
was the symbol of this dispensation a tongue, if 
we were not to talk of Jesus, the Name high over 
all? 



50 



MARGARET B O T T O M E 

]\/TY two little grandchildren who have just left 
-'-^-■•me, after a little visit, are so ignorant, 
they scarcely know anything ; yet they are as much 
George's sons as they will ever be ! And now, in 
all our ignorance, and in our baby-world, we are 
still the children of God. But it doth not appear 
what we shall be. We are growing and are going 
on to grow more and more. I never understood so 
well as now the truth that faith is the substance of 
things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. 
I have come through a furnace or am in one, and 
the fire has done its work. I know 

He only designs 
My dross to consume and my gold to refine. 

But I tell you, I know what real gold is to-day; In 
distinction from that which is not gold. Where 
would I be to-day, this hour. If I had not a clear 
aim In my life? For notwithstanding all the im- 
perfections, I have wanted to be useful, to be a 
joy or strength or comfort to others. And so did 
Frank, and now I am sure his work of usefulness 
is going on. I cannot imagine him as anything but 
busy, and as my work goes on, of course we are 
together. Our aim is one and that Is a wonder- 
ful bond. I would not give the Impression that 
there does not now and then sweep over me such a 
loneliness as I cannot describe, but It does not re- 
main. For I get out and on to the unselfish side, 

51 



HEART TO HEART LETTERS 

as quickly as possible and go to work comforting 
someone else. No selfish grief would be worthy 
of the Master, or him, or me. I must go right 
on and work till the day is done. 



I DECLARE to you, there is nothing large 
enough for me but God, and God over all. I 
am truly glad when anyone finds rest to his soul 
in any coommunion. And it may be that some 
find it outside of any such communion. I have 
often thought of Tyndall's ascent of the Matter- 
horn. So many had tried it on the usual sides, 
and failed; but he tried a side which no one had 
till then attempted, and he reached the top! 
God is more willing to give Himself than we are 
to give good gifts unto our children, and is giving 
us all the time, without our asking. So we give 
to our children before they really know us, and 
are able to speak to us ; and we never stop giving. 



52 



M A R G A RET B O T T O M E 

ONE danger with advanced thinkers Is that 
in seeing "new" truth, they speak shghtingly 
of that which is imperfect. Now there came a 
time when the Law of Moses ceased, or was in- 
sufficient to meet man's requirements, and then 
Christ came. But He said / am come not to de- 
stroy hilt to fulfill. The Law was good so far as 
it went, but It did not reach the deepest need. 
The Law made nothing perfect hut the hringing 
in of a hetter hope did. And yet the "old" and 
the "new" Scriptures are one. Perhaps there is 
a deeper meaning than we have yet seen in "de- 
spise not the day of small things." What I want 
Is reality and it Is so strange that what we de- 
precate in others, there we are apt to fail our- 
selves. That lesson of the Saviour teaches this: 
the man could not pay what he owed; and while, 
needing forgiveness himself, he turned on his 
debtor and heat him. So these, days, I see not 
only my own faults, but God's forgiveness and I 
cannot turn on others so quickly and insist on my 
rights, as I have been accustomed to do! 



S3 



HEART TO HEART LETTERS 

ALL that we have called the "platitudes," 
have started into such realities lately. We 
have talked about the "uncertainty of life," until 
the words have no meaning. But they can be- 
come wonderfully real, through experience ! And 
it will take a valiant soldier to walk the heavenly 
road. It is one thing to talk about a truth; and 
another to go through it, and we must go 
through. There is such a thing as fighting, and 
not getting through, not getting the victory; but 
to be able to get through here and now; to be 
able to say "thanks be to God, Who giveth us 
the victory," that is everything I 



54 



MARGARET B O T T O M E 

I READ in the papers that there Is a great bliz- 
zard in Texas, and here also we are having 
what looks like a blizzard! All was peaceful 
when we went to bed last night; but now it is 
snow and sleet and ice and wind. The immediate 
question is, with a blizzard here, and one in Texas, 
is there any necessity why there should be a bliz- 
zard within? In addition to all my other com- 
forts, I have a telephone and so can make "calls" 
on my friends. And I can pray, (that is my 
spiritual telephone), and if I hold the wire, I shall 
get an answer ! So I can spend a pleasant, quiet, 
trustful day. I am glad of all the things I did 
yesterday! . . . Your letter on "stir-up" Sunday 
has just come. All my Sundays (and all my 
week days) are "stir-up" Sundays and "stir-up" 
week-days ; but I like the name very much. Pen- 
tecost was indeed a "stir-up." What the Church 
wants is a "stir-up" experience! 



55 



HEART TO HEART LETTERS 

HE is a greater God, a kinder God than my old 
theology gave me. I know, no matter what 
I have done, no matter what I am, no matter how 
unlike His ideal for me, no matter if everybody 
is discouraged with me, and I, utterly discour- 
aged with myself, yet it is written, he shall not 
fail or he discouraged till he have set judgment 
upon the earth. And if He travailed in soul 
for me, then he shall see of the travail of his 
soul, and shall he satisfied! In the twilight last 
evening, I read the close of Hahakuk. I wish 
you would sometime look at the last three verses 
and mark the two words, "although," "yet," and 
then put in your lack, whether "outward," or "in- 
ward," and then follow the Prophet's example. 
God is left, no matter what is gone 1 



56 



MARGARET B O T T O M E 



I HAVE found myself singing this morning the 
verse my mother repeated so often during 
these last two weeks of her life: 

Happy If with my latest breath, 
I may but gasp His name. 

Oh! what a fountain of hymns was in her mind 
and how they have poured out at the last. I shall 
come from her death-bed, loving the faith, and 
the simplicity in which I was brought up, more 
than ever. "With charity for all, and malice 
towards none," but with a leaning towards the 
simplicity of our religion. And yet one comes to 
see how one real Christians are — after all the dif- 
ferences that divide them here, there Is a unity 
in the spirit. "Holding the Head," we are- very 
safe. 



57 



HEART TO HEART LETTERS 

OWHAT a grand opportunity is ours in 
merely living! If the curtain could only be 
lifted, and we could see how we are cheering 
those who were ready to give up in utter discour- 
agement; how a letter came just in time; how a 
grasp of the hand warmed a frozen heart! All 
little things, yet anybody could do them. The 
hot tears start to my eyes and I think of those 
who ache at times for an inspiring, cheery voice ! 
When I think of it all, the cry is forced from my 
heart; ComCj Lord Jesus, and come quickly. 



58 



MARGARET B O T T O M E 

I THINK I told you of my little prayer for us 
all at the beginning of this New Year. I 
thought I would have only one prayer, and that 
so short, that I should not forget it. So in the 
early moments of the first day, 1 said: Guide me! 
and it seemed to embrace so much, that I of- 
fered it up for my children: Guide them! And 
now I must not fail to see His guiding Hand 
about you ! You are In His Hand, and so are 
those very dear to you, and He will guide and 
keep. Never have I felt It so precious to trust 
Him as now. And I will trust Him to make 
you well. I think I never realized so truly. His 
power to heal. I ask for His Interests, that He 
will restore you to health. He Is leading and 
though there may be a dark tunnel, it means light 
ahead I 



59 



HEART TO HEART LETTERS 

I HAVE written and said of late, that our re- 
ligion was a costlier thing than we had thought 
it to be. And I have decided that holiness is the 
one thing needful, and holiness means "whole- 
ness," soul-health, and I have no time for any- 
thing else. The solemn words ring in my ear, 
without holiness no man can see the Lord. I 
will take no risks. He that putteth his hand to 
the plough, and looketh back, is not fit for the 
Kingdom of God. If thou wilt he perfect (and 
that is what I want to be) sell all that thou hast. 
I will take all the consequences of holiness: that 
is the one thing I want. I will not even ask to be 
understood. Why should I be? He was not 
understood. 



60 



MARGARET B O T T O M E 

WE have learned to live more In the spirit 
than we used to live; and there are no fu- 
nerals in our eternal life ! The words you wrote 
me, when I was away (though playfully written), 
are such a comfort as I apply them now to you 
and say: "You are somewhere;" and you will 
be carrying cups of cold water to the thirsty; 
giving bread to the hungry; and It will be a joy 
to think of you giving joy. 

We cannot so far separate 

As not to make the distant near. 

We shall eat the same spiritual food day by day; 
and we shall go to sleep every night in the Ever- 
lasting Arms ; and the closer we live to God, the 
nearer we shall be to each other. 



6i 



HEART TO HEART LETTERS 

SOON you will know the early autumn; even 
as your Mother knows the late autumn. But 
there is a springtime that knows no winter and 
it all lies in the word that came to me this morn- 
ing: / am with you alway ; that meets my deepest 
need. I have had so much, but nothing stays: 
even your children go from you; none abideth 
but One ! He says, / will never leave you nor 
forsake you. He has loved us too much to allow 
us to be satisfied with anything but Himself. 
Room is all He asks. O! if we could only see 
the value of empty rooms; and there are times 
when the heart cries out, empty, empty. And 
there are times when I can bless Him for the 
empty places. It is the desert that is to bloom and 
blossom as the rose 1 



62 



MARGARET B O T T O M E 

THERE are times when I write letters, and 
put them into the post basket, but I don't 
seal them. I think that perhaps I may add 
something, or change my mind in some way. But 
when I not only close them but seal them, the one 
who has charge of them takes them away, and 
they go! Now I think it is often so with some 
of our consecrations. Somehow they are not 
sealed, and so do not reach their destination. Let 
us not only say or sing, but act it : 

The vow is passed beyond repeal 
And now I set the solemn seal. 

Then all the rest will follow: 

'Tis done; the great transaction's done, 
I am my Lord's, and He is mine ! 



63 



HEART TO HEART LETTERS 

HOW much I have to be thankful for, as I 
find myself back at what was my home twen- 
ty-eight years ago. I remember the first time I 
came here. I came alone. A friend was at the 
station to meet me ; but I was reading a book, and 
so passed through, and went to the next station, 
where I had to wait two hours. I remember 
saying, "Well! it must be a good thing for me 
to be nowhere for a while." I seemed to be be- 
tween the old home I had left, and the new place 
I was to call home. So I spent those two hours 
in earnest thought and prayer for the future. 
Many a time since I knew I could not have 
afforded to lose those two hours, nowhere ! 



64 



MARGARET B O T T O M E 

A FRIEND asked me the other day If I did 
not feel a great loss of vitality. I told her 
that I should soon fill up again 1 I feel that what 
we talk about must be a constant reality to us. 
I believe what Brooks said: The world has not 
heard its best preaching yet, but to have grander 
preaching, we must have grander men. I am so 
hopeful this morning. I find myself singing with 
Whittier: 

I feel the earth more sunward, 
I join the great march onward, 
And take by faith, while living, 
My freehold of thanksgiving! 



65 



HEART TO HEART LETTERS 

THERE are no half measures for us ; we must 
overcome or be overcome. I prefer the 
former. I have had trials in my life (in circum- 
stances and "the nature of things") that would 
otherwise have swamped me : but I believed in 
God, and I have determined to turn everything 
that is against me, to someone else's help. There 
is no other way. And such a strength comes when 
we get through expecting anything from human 
sources; when we get to the end of disappoint- 
ments ; and we don't amount to much, with other 
people until we do get there ! Christ must become 
our "all in all." I do not mean in a theological 
fashion, but as a living reahty. Christ in us, 
making us happy, when other people would make 
us miserable I 



66 



MARGARET B O T T O M E 

"VTOUR bright letter came to me this morning, 
•'' and I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed 
it; and I needed it. There are so many shadows 
in this shadowland! There are family shadows; 
and unaccountable mental shadows, and I am sure 
there is only one way out into the sunshine, out 
into the brightness, and that is in having a God 
Who is a fact, and a God Who is all-loving, all- 
patient, and Who loveth all. I think I must be a 
little way up in that balloon you speak of, for I 
have come to see so much more than I used to see, 
and so much appears small to me. 



67 



HEA RT TO HEART LETTERS 

I am satisfied we have hardly touched the fringe 
of the garment of faith. We are not building 
in the unseen ; we are taken up with what appears ; 
but not with Him Who made them appear. And 
He not only makes things appear; He makes 
them disappear! There is a deeper meaning in 
those old words than we have yet fathomed: God 
is our Home. And until we get Home, we are so 
tossed about by one thing and another. Life to 
some is a journeying away from God, further 
and further away; and at last there comes the 
word, "I will arise and go unto my Father," and 
then the poor, ragged, tired child is at home. 



MARGARET B O T T O M E 

I LIKE to be, and must be, exceedingly practi- 
cal in my faith. Otherwise I shall lose it. It 
is no little thing to keep the faith. St. Paul only 
tells us he did it; he does not tell us what it cost 
him. I laughed so the other day, over a conver- 
sation I had with a friend, whom I have known 
for years. I believe she calls herself a mental 
scientist. I said to her, "I am so glad to see you; 
are you well?" She looked at me and replied, 
"Please put the well-thought on me!" I did not 
know at first what she meant, and then I under- 
stood, that she did not wish me to question the 
matter of her health. Of course she was well ! 
There are many new things floating 'round these 
days: I try them on in a private sort of way. If 
they fit me, I wear them; if not I dismiss them. 
So if I should not be feeling very well, and any- 
one should ask me, how are you? I could answer 
/ am well. And that would be the truth. The 
real ^'me^' is not my body and I shall never fail to 
let it be known that such Is my faith. The person 
is the spirit, and that Is well ! and It Is spirit we 
must think of instead of the cloak we wear. Christ 
kept saying continually, thy faith hath saved thee. 
Only believe! O, If ministers would only exalt 
faith to the place it has in the New Testament. 



69 



HEART TO HEART LETTERS 

ST. PAUL seemed sure of only two things: 
save that bonds and imprisonment await me. 
And in a sense they are the only two things that 
most earnest souls can be sure of. I am so glad 
of your parting word, he courageous. You said 
it more than once, and I ought to be. I have been 
taking my "soundings." One thing is clear to me, 
that I must be great in the sight of the Lord. And 
all that is asked of me is to do what I can. If I 
can only be well, I shall get along. I carry a good 
deal of freight; but that may keep the boat 
steady; it did the "Chicago" ! 



70 



MARGARET B O T T O M E 

I AM thinking of giving a Christmas talk from 
the words : Buy of me. When Christ said, Buy 
of me, He was speaking to the people who had 
need of nothing. They were Increased with 
goods, rich people, and He said to them, buy of 
me. In all their purchasing, there was one dress 
they needed and that they would have to obtain 
from Him. White raiment that you may he 
clothed. The soul must be clothed as well as the 
body, and the raiment must be white. No cloth- 
ing, no dress, has any value, compared with this 
white raiment. How can I get it? What must 
I pay? He says. Buy of me. One thing I know, 
and that is, / was not bought with corruptible 
things, such as silver and gold, but with the pre- 
cious blood of Jesus Christ. I must come and say, 
"I want the white raiment and I will give my faith 
in that blood for that white raiment." There 
was a company St. John saw; and they had white 
robes, and in answer to the question. Who are 
these ? the answer came, These are they that have 
washed their robes and made them white in the 
blood of the Lamb. So it was faith in the Blood 
of Christ that gave the white raiment. Believest 
thou? Go through the New Testament from be- 
ginning to end, the word runs: Believe, believe. 
With this white raiment we are rich this Christ- 
mas, whatever else we miss; and we are poor 
without it, no matter how much of everything else 
we have. To have a Saviour from sin, to believe 
in the Name that was given Him (because He 

71 



HEART TO HEART LETTERS 

would save His people from their sins), this is 
Christmas Peace, Christmas Joy, Christmas 
Love; this Is immortal, eternal; this is to have 
everlasting life. 



I TAKE great delight In the command : Forget- 
ting the things that are behind. Should I ever 
meet Kipling, I shall ask Him to write a hymn 
on the lines "Lest we remember" ! God tells us 
He forgets and He wishes us to forget as well; 
If He forgets our sins, He does not wish us to 
remember them. 



72 



MARGARET B O T T O M E 

I AM alone to-night, but that Is not at all un- 
common with me. Harry Is In Atlantic City; 
George Is also away. I really do not know where 
Frank is, save that he Is In Paradise; and I do not 
know what he Is doing. But I am sure he is busy; 
he could not be otherwise. Sometimes I am so hun- 
gry, but I never tell ; It is best for me to hold my- 
self to what I am sure is the need of many around. 
It is a sad world; make the best of it. I have 
need of all the cultivation of Faith, Hope, and 
Love that I can keep up; ''these three" death can- 
not touch; and I must get people on this line. I 
must work, I must be about my Father's business. 
I cannot say that I do not feel the changes that 
life has brought to me, but they have not made 
me bitter, they have not given me (I think they 
have not) an air of sadness. I am sure I ought 
to live on the bright side and so I will. I would 
not, though, give you a wrong impression. I do 
sometimes think for a little of what it would 
mean if the sea were not between us; but then 
I go over to the side on which I must live. What 
a blessing it is that there is no dark sea of Sin 
between us. We are one In spirit, and who can 
estimate what that means? Only those who have 
it. So we will return to Him with songs. 



7Z 



HEART TO HEART LETTE R S 

DO you know the lines that are on the stone 
that marks the spot where the body of your 
grandmother was laid? These are the words: 

Give joy or grief; give ease or pain; 
Take life or friends away, 
But let me find them all again, 
In that eternal day. 

We shall find them all again. O what a meet- 
ing! What should we do in hours of grief or 
loneliness, if we did not hear the Voice or believe 
He uttered the words : / am the Resurrection and 
the Life! He that believe th in me, though he 
were dead, yet shall he live, and he that liveth 
and believeth in me, shall never die. We shall 
simply be changed into the likeness and image of 
Christ; we shall be with Him and our dear ones, 
forever. This is what makes it possible for me 
to be happy on your birthday with the sea be- 
tween us. As I beheve this, there seems to be no 
more seal 



74 



MARGARET B O T T O M E 

T AM so glad I am not commanded to under- 
-■- stand anybody, not even myself; only God. 
He that glorieth, let him glory in this that he 
understandeth and knoweth me; that I am the 
Lord that exerciseth loving kindness and judgment 
in the earth; for in these things do I delight, saith 
the Lord. I was so amused by what an old col- 
ored woman gave in a Prayer Meeting, as her 
"experience." "I have," she said, "the peace of 
God that passeth all misunderstandings.'^ The 
only thing needful is that we should not misun- 
derstand God, and I do not see how we can be 
saved,^ except by faith. Only by faith can we 
stand justified. O, how wonderful it will be when 
we shall "see and know." But till that day dawns, 
we must believe, because He says, we know, by 
faith. 



75 



HEART TO HEART LETTERS 

I AM glad I am all alone. I am thinking of 
them. "It doth not yet appear," is just as true 
as "when He shall appear, we shall be like Him." 
We are walking by Faith now, not by sight, and 
it is pleasing to God that we should be "still" and 
know that He is God: the darkness and light are 
both alike to Him. In His hands are all the deep 
places of the earth, the deep places in us are in 
His hands and that is the reason we can be still. 
I hardly trust myself to think of some things ; and 
so I keep on the old way, to try to make earth 
as bright as possible. I should have broken, if 
I had not gone that way; I should have felt old, 
and then I would have been old. I see people 
around me making mistakes. It seems to me they 
do not believe in immortality; or they do not im- 
press me, as if they did. But I will not judge; 
we all have to go the best way we can, and He 
is so infinitely tender and pitiful; and is so sorry 
for us all. But you see He knows what He has 
in store for us; all the untold joy and rapture of 
reunions, and He knows that "weeping will only 
endure for a night, and that joy cometh in the 
morning," never to be succeeded by a night! So 
we will keep our Christmas in anticipation of the 
real Christmas Feast, where all will be at Home ! 



MARGARET B O T T O M E 

WE have said truth, but not lived it. The 
"outward perisheth" ; but when it comes to 
seeing it, that is another thing. We have had our 
estimates wrong, and so we are thrown. O the 
suffering that must come by clinging to sin and 
self. We have called death life, and life death. 
Let us live on the spirit side, and we shall prove 
under all circumstances that to be spiritually 
minded is hfe and peace. To be otherwise 
minded is death, death now. Hope dies; 
we are not full of peace. O let us live on the 
heavenly side of things. You cannot be on both 
sides at the same time; and you get the results 
instantly from the side you are on, in thought and 
contemplation. Put your foot down, your foot of 
faith; will to live on God's side; take God's 
thoughts, and live them! 



77 



HEART TO HEART LETTERS 

ONE of the sweetest thoughts I can give you 
now, is one that you gave me when you were 
a little child. You put the hands of your doll to- 
gether one Sunday morning at the breakfast table 
while your sister said "Grace." The doll's fin- 
gers were broken; only the stumps of the hands 
were there. As soon as Grace was over, I turned 
to you and said, "Your doll is rather the worse 
for wear." You drew it close up to your bosom 
and replied, as your lip trembled, "She is dearer 
to me, since she lost her fingers!" In that mo- 
ment I saw the love of God. We are nearer, 
dearer to Him when we are sufferers, when we 
are broken. As the words are spoken at the Sac- 
rament, "broken for you," only think how His 
Father felt over that broken Body! And He 
came to bind up the broken-hearted. And even 
the bodies that are broken, some day He will 
make whole ! 

Thou breakest down to build up, 

Not destroy; 
Thou doest right, O Lord, 

Thou knowest best. 



78 



MARGARET B O T T O M E 

THREE years ago he left us. He did not 
die; the body did. It is not always easy to 
keep this faith, but it must be kept. Much can- 
not be kept, and we can afford to let much go ; but 
the faith must be kept, the battle must be fought, 
the course must be run. We say by our creeds, 
by our preaching and teaching, that we believe a 
great deal, but we only believe what we live. And 
to live what we say we believe, is no little thing. 
I am facing some things to-day. I say, I believe 
what Jesus said, He that helieveth in me shall 
ne'ver die. Do I take in what that means? the 
glory of it? Well, how do I look? How do I 
act under the circumstances? Do I look and act 
so that those who do not believe in Jesus, are 
compelled to say "She has something I know noth- 
ing about. She looks as if he had not died; only 
gone somewhere !" Do we cultivate a faith like 
this? The early Church had it. It never said 
death; it said, departure; gone to he with Christ; 
fallen asleep. This is the only faith that is suffi- 
cient for me. Someone said to me the other day: 
"You have no facts, you have only a faith." Well, 
I am willing he should have all the facts he wants ; 
only let me have the faith. My faith saves me; 
nothing material does. *'God only is substance." 



79 



HEART TO HEART LETTERS 

THIS is your birthday, and I shall not see your 
face. I cannot even imagine the house in 
which you live. And if you were not a spirit, if 
you were not united to me in the Spirit, not much 
in connection with you would be mine. There is 
a deeper meaning in Who is my mother? than 
perhaps we see. We must be born again for this 
purpose, to know that we cannot see the Kingdom, 
unless we are so reborn! If we are not in the 
same kingdom, we do not meet, we have not the 
same tastes. For instance, I have no theater life, 
I imagine I do not belong to the kingdom of art. 
You do not associate me with it. In some other 
kingdom we must meet. And what I desire above 
everything else is that we should meet in the King- 
dom of Heaven, here and now. When you write 
(as you do) that you love Christ, then we meet, 
for that is what I want above everything else. I 
do not say there is no human side to all this, but 
we can be so far from one another in the body 
(and in all that pertains to the body), that to be 
''spiritually minded" becomes the one practical 
bond. I am sure our mistake is in not being more 
spiritual, living more and more in the things that 
are eternal; more and more at home "in the 
Lord." 



80 



MARGARET B O T T O M E 

WHAT a privilege it is to live on the Hudson ! 
To be sure it is a very little house I live in, 
but I am certain I shall find it large enough to 
glorify God in ! and that is my principal business. 
I should be very stupid indeed if I had not learned 
by this time (having lived in such a variety of 
houses, and having spent some time in the larger 
houses of friends) , that it is not in outward condi- 
tions that happiness lies. 1 am glad to-day that 
I have a child's delight in little things; "sunshine, 
songs of birds and flowers," and I laughed the 
other night when the advantages of a small house 
dawned upon me. Such a house as this is just the 
house for near-sighted people. Now this whole 
house is very near me ; I can see it all ! 



8i 



HEART TO HEART LETTERS 

NO service for God, no head-knowledge of 
Him, nothing, nothing will suffice but a satis- 
fied heart. I am a seeker for what I write about. 
Your Father used to say I was always seeking re- 
ligion. Well! I am glad I did seek. I am glad 
I am seeking now to know God. I don't care for 
much else, though I have "all things and abound." 



82 



MARGARET B O T T O M E 

IT is Easter Day, and I have been to church. As 
I looked at the many plants in full bloom I 
thought, what a short time since they were seeds 
or bulbs? And who, if he had not known, would 
have dreamed that those ugly bulbs could have 
given us our Easter Lilies? And it doth not yet 
appear what we shall he, and if we had not had a 
jirst fruits, who could have imagined a glorified 
body? And one thought that came to me as I 
looked at the flowers was this: the same power 
worketh in us that brought forth the flowers and 
raised our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead, and 
the same spirit will quicken our mortal bodies. 
O! the blessed Easter hopes that bloom at the 
tomb to-day! 



83 



HEART TO HEART LETTERS 

rHE Love of Christ constraineth me. Love 
is always constraining; everyone who has 
loved knows that; but we are in a sad world; 
changes come, our loved ones pass away. Some- 
times changes take place, sadder than death. 
Sometimes we are separated from those we love, 
and we miss the inspiration their presence would 
give us. And yet here is all this work, this life 
work to be done, and there is so little heart at 
times to do it with. What shall we do? Is 
there a better way? Can the One Who made 
this strange organism, so susceptible to suffering 
and joy, with such vast capacities for loving, can 
He satisfy our human hearts? I answer from 
my deepest consciousness this morning, having 
suffered on account of what I have been writing 
about. Yes! There is a perfect Love, and every 
want of your nature and mine can be met in God. 



MARGARET B O T T O M E 



I FIGHT a battle every day. I know that every 
day Christ wins or loses in me. And I am de- 
termined that what is not of the Father, I will not 
have. And I know that He that doeth the will 
of God, abideth forever. No circumstances, no 
people, nothing can prevent me from doing the 
will of God; save one person, and that is myself. 
Not where I am, but what I am is everything to 
me. Be ye holy sounds in my spirit and I must 
obey the divine call. I have had the best sum- 
mer of my life, and I am going to have the best 
winter of my life. If I should die this winter, 
of course it will be my best winter. If I should 
live, it will be my best. There are no disappoint- 
ments on this line. 



8s 



HEART TO HEART LETTERS 

I HAVE often thought of the little child of a 
friend of mine. The mother was so anxious 
that her daughter should be perfect that nearly 
all her time was spent in pointing out her faults. 
But one day she was praying aloud, with her child 
kneeling beside her, and she poured forth her 
heart in gratitude to God for giving her such a 
daughter. As she rose from her knees, the child 
threw her arms around her mother's neck and 
exclaimed, "O Mother! how you did brag about 
me to God! Now I will be good!" Sometimes, 
I think a little of the praise we shall shower on 
our loved ones when they are gone, would help 
them very much on their way now ! O how tired 
I get of some things ! I long for the place where 
all discord shall be done away. It does seem, as 
someone has said, that the Church of Christ 
"sharpens her sickle to cut the harvesters." I 
have outgrown sects. I do not care what people 
call themselves. I want to see the image of 
Christ! I ignore all names, all theology so- 
called. I believe human hearts want bandaging, 
and I take my oil and bandages. I am willing 
that others should do what I cannot do, but I know 
I am sent to heal the broken-hearted. 



86 



MARGARET B O T T O M E 

ON this Birthday, after having been in the 
world seventy-eight years, the thing I cannot 
help seeing is that I seem as far from perfection 
as ever, and I feel sure I shall not be "finished" 
when I leave this world! There is nothing for 
me to rest in, so far as I am concerned. I am 
glad there is more than one thing that abides. 
Hope abides — it is not so great as Love, but it 
abides. And I shall have to hope in the next 
world, so far as my spiritual education is con- 
cerned. So on this, my seventy-eighth birthday, 
I hope in God. 



87 



HEA RT TO HEART LETTERS 

BE your own self as God made you. You 
cannot go the way of another. I do not say 
it is better than the way of another, only / am not 
that other: I am only myself; yet that is God's 
self; the self He made. O, if we can only come 
to see God, and we shall! The endless years of 
years are before us; but we must keep on the spirit 
side. I could age in a month if I dwelt on 
"time" in my thought. In a sense I have noth- 
ing to do with time. I am a child of eternity. 
Life, Eternal Life is Christ's word. But all this 
is not to be something apart from the common 
every-day state of things. If our Christianity is 
not in everything, it is nothing. It seems as if I 
had just begun to know what it is to be a Chris- 
tian, 



MARGARET B O T T O M E 

I HAVE been thinking of the name by which 
God calls Himself: / am. And again, / am 
thy God. Do we really understand what it is to 
have a God? It is no little thing to believe in 
God. The biggest thing I know of to-day, is a 
real belief in God. My one purpose at this time 
is to get better acquainted with God. Every 
other acquaintance dwindles into insignificance 
compared with that. The One Who came to in- 
troduce Him as "Our Father," really knew Him. 
He would never have said "Your Father," if He 
had not known He was. We have been intro- 
duced to God the Father by Christ; now we must 
believe that "He is." We must say "My God" 
and not say it merely, but believe it, act on it, 
every day, every hour. And if He says, I am 
thy Saviour, we must act as if we had a Saviour. 
We must say, / am saved, or we are not witnesses 
for God, and will not know practically what it is 
to be saved. When God says / am we must echo 
for ourselves the words, / am. We must be 
linked with omnipotence. 



89 



HEA RT TO HEART LETTERS 

THE problems of life are too much for me at 
times; and there is only one way; just to do 
as I did with my mother when I was a child. Sew- 
ing silk used to be in skeins then, instead of, as 
now, on spools, and sometimes I did get it so tan- 
gled! And when I found myself further and 
further from unraveUing it, I handed it all to my 
mother. She was patient and calm, and slowly 
but surely, it all came out right. And there are 
times when the tangled skein of life is a little too 
much for me, more tangled inside than out; and 
there is only one way for me and that is to hand 
it over to the One Who says, "As a mother com- 
forteth, so will I comfort you." So I need never 
have any trouble about my mistakes; and if not 
about mine, why about yours? All things (in- 
cluding mistakes ! ) are working out ! There will 
not be much to work out, if you leave out mis- 
takes! Let us be true to our Faith! Kiss the 
sweet cross, and think on the eternal years. 



90 



MARGARET B O T T O M E 

I AM well; no friction in the house; and I have 
gone back to my dear little verse, and am act- 
ing upon it, 

Resign ! and all the load of life 
That moment you remove. 
Its heavy toil, ten thousand cares, 
Devolve on One above! 

Why should I carry loads that He wants to carry? 
He certainly wants to carry away my sins; why 
should I carry them? He wants to carry my in- 
firmities; why should I carry them? He wants 
to carry my cares; why should I carry "ten thou- 
sand cares"? He carries, and He is strong to 
do it; I am not. I made up my mind in the mid- 
dle of last night that I would go into a wholesale 
business; since a retail business does not agree 
with me. If I can be filled with the Spirit, that 
sweeps the deck! This "trying to be good" does 
not agree with me. So I was led to think of the 
baptism of fire. There is a fire symbol in the 
New Testament as well as a blood symbol. 
Faber says, "God's last grace and best is to die 
all on fire." So I made up my mind in the night 
that I would seek the baptism of fire. We hear 
now and then of the "whirlwinds of grace." Ah! 
me, we are apt to be content with the faintest 
breeze. 



91 



HEART TO HEART LETTERS 

A REPORTER in Boston the other day said 
something that made me burst out laughing. 
She was really startled. She said: "Do you 
laugh like that?" "Well," I replied, "if you lived 
with me, you would find it a common thing for 
me so to laugh." "Ah!" she said, "that accounts 
for much." I tell you, if we believe a small part 
of what we say we believe, the smile would hard- 
ly leave our faces. Think of being children of 
light! Think of such a Father! And we say, I 
believe In God the Father, till it has no meaning 
to us or anyone else. O, the terrible unreality of 
it all on the part of those who say it! They 
make the trouble for those who do not say it. Bad 
acting! Alas! Alas! Am I a child of God? 
Am I a child of eternity? Don't ever think of 
me as your old mother. This body will crumble 
into dust, but your mother is not this body ! Your 
mother Is a spirit, and spirit lives. Spirit is al- 
ways young. Spirit Is God! Seeing all these 
things shall he dissolved^ what manner of persons 
ought ye to he in all holy conversation and godli- 
ness. Things and persons are two very different 
things. Your person Is not your body! Now you 
get an Idea of what I have been thinking about, 
and thoughts make us. 



MARGARET B O T T O M E 

SOMEHOW we do not measure up to St. 
Paul's experiences. Afflictions were light to 
him because he saw what we do not seem to see ; 
he saw what the afflictions were working out, and 
we often lose sight of that. And it was only 
while he was looking at the things that are not 
seen, that he saw the brightness of all the earth. 
Someone said to Emerson, "Mr. Emerson, they 
say the world Is coming to an end." "Well," said 
Emerson, "I do not need it!" Ah! we have such 
a slight hold on that immense I, our personality. 
It would be well if we were taken up with two 
"I's"; God's "I," and our "I." It really seems 
as If the more you looked at the things that are 
"not seen," the better some things that are seen 
get along. 



93 



HEART TO HEART LETTERS 

HERE we are safe at home. I wonder if you 
are in a fog? I don't see any other way to 
be happy and at home in fogs! "Your life is a 
vapour" (a fog) ; so make the best of it. A 
friend of mine told me the other day that she com- 
menced every day simply counting herself out, for, 
she added, if I don't, there will be no room for the 
Holy Spirit; for self will take up all the room. 
Surely we might be happier if we would just take 
the good of here and now; be thankful for what 
we have! I laid my flowers yesterday (it was 
Decoration Day) on all my graves, inside and 
outside, the flowers of Faith and Hope and Love. 
Oh, how wonderful they were, and they will not 
fade! 



94 



MARGARET B O T T O M E 

I HAVE lived long enough to put some things in 
their places and to keep them there; but they 
are not the things that are seen. These are so 
often out of their place, and I forget where I put 
them. Not so with the things which are unseen : 
I know where they are, and they are eternal. I 
know that to be spiritually minded is life and 
peace, and to be carnally minded is death; death 
now ! I found myself this morning repeating one 
of the old quaint hymns of my girlhood. We 
used to sing it in class meetings : 

Though you have much peace and comfort, 

Greater joys you yet may find. 
Freedom from unholy tempers. 

Freedom from the carnal mind. 



95 



HEART TO HEART LETTERS 

MY spiritual Thanksgiving has thrown light 
for myself on this word: // it were not so; I 
would have told you. It came to me to give 
thanks for what I did not know. (And there is 
very little that we really know!) These all died 
in faith, and we may say of such a large number, 
these all live in faith. Thanks for the unknown; 
thanks for all He has not told us; thanks for the 
silence when we have said, Why? My Thanks- 
giving meditation has led me into such green pas- 
tures. Of course it only means living by faith; 
but to me it was a new road that led me into it. 
So I read the words of Christ this way: // it were 
not best for you not to know, I would have told 
you! And so what He does not tell, it is best not 
to know. It has seemed to stop the "Why" for 
a time ! I see you all so plainly as I write. To 
be sure I wish you could all be with us here at our 
Feast, but there Is better Feast, and at It we do 
sit down together. He setteth the solitary in 
families. To be solitary is to be lonesome; but 
as soon as we see the Father, we cease to be soli- 
tary; we are all at Home I 



96 



MARGARET B O T T O M E 

HOW many Palm Sunday letters I have writ- 
ten you in my time, but I did not see all I 
now see in the Palms. They stand for victory. 
The palm branches and shouts of Hosanna and 
all the crowd who followed that figure on the ass, 
passed away; they were short-lived; perhaps there 
were there the very persons who afterward cried 
"Crucify Him"; — so much for the apparent, the 
unreal. But that person riding so silently 
through the crowd, was real, and the real is the 
true ; the real is the eternal. What made Him so 
victorious? His faith in His Father. He came 
to do the will, and He was doing it, and He never 
flinched, till He cried, it is finished. And accord- 
ing to the New Testament, we are here to live 
such lives as He lived. Christ is to be known 
through the spirit within us; we are to manifest 
His life, a life lived in the unseen. There was 
where He lived; that made Him so independent 
of the outward. He came to establish within us 
a Kingdom in the unseen, and He has put us here 
to carry on this work of establishing the Kingdom 
of God In the hearts of people. 



97 



HEART TO HEART LETTER S 

IT is true now as ever. Everyone sooner or 
later exclaims in heart, every vision faileth. And 
it is really so, one broken dream after another. 
Only think of the vision of a perfect friendship, a 
perfect love, and if the vison is granted you (as in 
some cases it is), God takes your vision from be- 
fore your eyes. But alas! in the majority of 
cases, the vision is never embodied. Yet they had 
the vision; and every vision faileth! And it is 
clear to me that what God wants us to see is that 
He Himself is the "effect" of every vision, the 
beautiful vision! O, I am sure we have, if we 
seek it, the effect of every vision. Life is strewn 
with faded flowers, and yet the Flower of Eter- 
nity is fadeless. Perhaps if other flowers had 
not faded, we would never have sought the im- 
perishable. 



98 



MARGARET B O T T O M E 

I THANK God this morning for desire. I am 
coming to look at Christ in a very practical 
way. I think we have had theological views of 
Him, and sentimental views, but now we must 
have a practical understanding of him; and the 
fact is we are to desire these qualities that He pos- 
sessed. I say to myself, is He really mine, if I 
do not possess His character, in my measure, or 
some measure, at least? And may we not find 
out some day that the people who perhaps 
haven't said Lord! Lord! as we say it, have, even 
so, had His spirit, and so were truly Christ's 
though they might not have understood it; and 
that many who said Lord, Lord, He never knew! 
And we never are known to any but those who 
are in some degree at least like us. It seems to 
me if half the teaching had been the other way, 
and we had striven to get people to be loving and 
thoughtful of others, and gentle and unselfish, 
giving (rather than the eternal thought of get- 
ting)^ it would not have been so difficult to get 
them to know Christ, 



99 



HEART TO HEART LETTERS 

ONE fact stands out clearly, and that Is there 
is nothing that can take the place of "holi- 
ness" in God's sight. We have lived too much 
in the sight of people, and in our own sight; it is 
high time to begin to live in God's sight. To 
bring every thought, every action into this light, 
and to hold ourselves there, and find out what God 
thinks of it. I woke this morning with these two 
lines of Wesley running in my mind. 

Deeply on my thoughtful mind 
Eternal things impress! 

Let us ask ourselves, whether we really think that 
God is getting all that belongs to Him out of us; 
whether this little piece of property He owns, is 
being improved for the Owner? 



100 



MARGARET B O T T O M E 

YOU have come to another turning point In 
your hfe. You need now In regard to many 
things to let the past suffice. What those things 
are, I think your eyes will be opened to see. Sleep 
on beloved, and take your rest. Some things, 
some opportunities are gone forever. Rise, let 
us be going, there is something yet to do. How 
well I remember those words of Bushnell: "Study 
your trials, your talents, the world's wants, and 
stand ready to serve God now. In whatever He 
brings to your hands." Nothing could pay you 
better at this time of your life than to study your 
trials. I see before you one path that will bring 
blessing and that is narrow; the path of entire con- 
secration to God. Every life except the highest 
life will end In bitter disappointment. An ambas- 
sador has one business ; and everyone will respect 
you if you attend to this business, which is always 
on hand — to represent Christ! Think on these 
things. 



101 



HEART TO HEART LETTERS 

I HAVE just been reading an address of William 
Arthur, the author of the "Tongue of Fire." 
He said, in part: "Now I know that there are 
many people who always cry out for something 
practical, something to do, and they always seem 
to mean something that the hands can handle or 
the feet can touch. Very well, all that is practi- 
cal. But permit me to say, that so far as I know, 
the most practical thing in this world is a thought 
put into a human mind, or a feeling raised in a 
in a human heart, and whatever tends to keep 
thought right, and feeling right; or whatever 
tends, when thought has gone wrong, to raise it 
up to the right, is for me the most practical thing 
man can do. Get right feehng, and right think- 
ing, and they will bring all the other things after 
them." 



102 



MARGARET B O T T O M E 

WE want magnificent Christians; men intense- 
ly devoted to "one thing"; and everything 
else helping on that one thing. Now no "busi- 
ness man," as one terms such, will ever have the 
real respect for clergymen till they see them as 
anxious about the spiritual culture of everyone 
within their reach, as they themselves are anxious 
to make money or gain whatever they have before 
them. Only in clergymen (as their business 
is so much higher and grander) they expect to 
see an even deeper earnestness. And here comes 
the trouble and people are becoming skeptical. 
This age must have things real; no shams, no ap- 
pearances, and what you have not, you cannot 
show. Be In earnest about having a living in- 
ward experience. Have the spirit Grant had 
when he said, "I'll fight it out on this line, if It 
takes me all summer." I will know God. And 
the moment the will Is fixed, you are on the way. 
All heaven will be on your side. But you will 
have to put your fingers In your ears and cry 
"Eternal life!" "Eternal life!" 



103 



HEART TO HEART LETTERS 

WE are like God in this : nothing satisfied Him 
but love ; and so when He says, thou shalt 
love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, He 
simply tells us what we need and what He needs. 
God says, what more could I have done for my 
vineyard that I have not done in it? and I looked 
that it should bring forth grapes and it brought 
forth wild grapes. Perfect grapes are a refresh- 
ment, they are so sweet. Wild grapes are bitter, 
sour, and hard. The sweetest thing in this uni- 
verse is love, and that is what God wants; and 
unless we love Him, and feel that He loves us, 
we are not, and cannot be, happy. This is the 
experience without which, no matter how much 
we may preach, or work for others, there remains 
a lack within. 



104 



MARGARET B O T T O M E 

I PROPOSE to sit down with my soul, and sol- 
emnly ask myself the most important question 
that, with my views, I can ask myself: what think 
ye of Christ? I cannot tell you what peace and 
joy are in my heart, as I answer the question and 
confess my faith in Him as my Saviour. I need 
a Saviour! 

The mistakes of my hfe have been many, 
The sins of my heart have been more. 
And to me Christ is the Saviour from the guilt of 
sin. I know this is not a fashionable theory, and 
I have been on more than one excursion myself, 
but I come back with such gladness to the old, old 
hymn, 

Forever here my rest shall be, 
Close to Thy bleeding side; 

This all my hope, and all my plea, 
For me the Saviour died. 

All this is very old-fashioned, but it Is not cant. 
If you preach the Gospel, the glad tidings of great 
joy to all people, you will have to preach a char- 
acterless salvation. They that he whole, need not 
a physician, hut they that are sick; and so few ad- 
mit that they are sick! It is our pride that is 
the hateful thing in God's sight ! 



105 



HEART TO HEART L E T 7^ E R S 

AT the age of twenty-five the idea of entire 
consecration to Christ became the idea with 
me; to live, work, think, speak, write, in short to 
do all "heartily, as unto the Lord" ; this took pos- 
session of me, and this was the beginning of real 
life with me. I know it was a life very, very im- 
perfect. I can look back now and see what great 
mistakes I have made; but I believe that the mo- 
tive was good; I worked for Christ; and through 
a way so strange, the unseen world became the 
real world to me. Through suffering (that few 
know of, or dream of) I have come, or "am com- 
ing. Lord, to Thee." But one thing Is clear to 
me: all that makes me rich today (and I have my 
riches), all that makes the future loom up so 
grandly, everything, I can trace to that determina- 
tion that I would be all the Lord's. No one 
knows my imperfections of character more than 
I do; and I think there is much in me still un- 
tamed, but only those can judge me who have 
such a nature as I have. But this I know, that 
God will save a soul by His providence and grace, 
which is honest at heart, and wants to be pure, 
and useful, and to work for Him. 



io6 



MARGARET B O T T O M E 

I HAVE not been useful In a domestic way, I 
am convinced of that. I have not been what I 
wished to be as a mother. And yet I have every 
reason to beheve that I have helped many women, 
7iot all, but many, to a trust and love and hope in 
God, and in this I will rejoice, yea! and do 
rejoice! I have had an idea running right 
through my life, and it has run through a most 
imperfect character. But the stream has been 
there, the idea I have never lost sight of, that of 
entire consecration to God. And that "service" 
never seemed so "reasonable" (rational, the word 
means) as it does now. All besides, I am satisfied 
is Insanity; this only is rational. All the good that 
has come to me, has come along the lines of my 
consecration. This one thing I do is a. good 
motto. Failure along any line awaits those who 
have not the three requisites for success: convic- 
tion, concentration, consecration. 



107 



HEART TO HEART LETTERS 

MY object today is to create a fear of what 
the New Testament calls the world. I may 
not be able to define it, it isn't easy to do so, but 
we must be saved from the power of it. Those 
who feel no danger, I am convinced are in the most 
dangerous position. The Pharisees were slaves 
to it; the "sinners" did not seem to know much 
about it. They had the flesh maybe to contend 
with, but it is the world that is put at the head of 
the forces that are against us. I find that "the 
world" really means separation from God, and 
God only is the cure for worldliness. And there 
can be separation from God even when we are 
doing, or think we are doing God service ! 



io8 



MARGARET B O T T O M E 

I KNOW there is a real sore place In your 
heart, and I want you to bring it to the great 
Healer. Do not say, "I will show some people 
in the future what I can do", and thus let the sore 
rankle, but first go to Christ, and tell Him all 
your disappointments, and the disappointments of 
others, and then go forth alone with Him and 
make the defeats of the past ^'stepping stones to 
higher things", to future success. "Organize vic- 
tory out of defeat." Only be determined in the 
strength of God, by acknowledging Him in all 
your ways, that victory shall perch on your future 
banner, and all will be well. 



109 



HEART TO HEART LETTERS 

IF I knew of any other place "where everlasting 
spring abides" but In Christ, I would tell you. 
If I could say to you, out of my own experience 
(and it has been uncommonly rich in this respect) , 
that human love will never disappoint you, and 
that you will find the friendships of earth all that 
you picture them ; ah ! if I could only tell you this ! 
How gladly would I say It If I could. But I can 
tell you one thing; for I have been off on an 
exploring expedition to find something of far 
greater importance than any Northwest Passage. 
O, how I have longed to know whether there was 
another "open sea"; whether there was any con- 
nection between broken dreams, disappointed 
hopes of earth, and something higher in me; If 
I could reach a shore where my ships would come 
home; if much that must die would give place to 
something more beautiful ; or whether the bright- 
ness could only be in remembrance of what had 
been, or might have been! God only, and the 
soul, who goes on this exploring expedition, can 
know how much must be passed through; and yet 
the real death would be to give up the search! 
And then slowly you begin to find out that the soul 
never loses anything worth having, by progress. 
Only keep pressing on towards the things which 
are before; forgetting what is behind; so you 
really save all that Is of any value. O! what a 
life ( and the only real life) our Inner life may be I 



no 



MARGARET B O T T O M E 



WHEN we once let Into our thoughts and 
heart the truth we sing so often, Thou O 
Christ art all I want, Christ's presence will be to 
us more than anything else In the universe. So 
whatever It Is we want, let us, instead of asking 
for that, ask for Christ, and in His coming we 
shall have what is better than anything else. If 
we ask for something which it is His will that we 
should have, we shall have it with Christ. He 
will give us all things, but the deepest want Is 
Christ. And If He withholds anything we have 
asked for, and yet gives Himself, we shall be 
more than satisfied. 



Ill 



HEART TO HEART LETTERS 



SPIRIT Is more to me than anything material. 
O! how I have longed for spiritual com- 
munion; it has been my life and nothing, nothing 
can take its place with me. George in writing to 
me, while sailing up the Hudson this week, said he 
often wondered why the Apostle Paul made so 
little of the beauties of nature; he never seemed 
to notice them. Ah ! he had a sight of Christ that 
swallowed up all His works. And in having 
Christ, we have what all nature cannot give us, 
and there will come a time, and it is hastening on, 
when only Christ can be anything to us. 



112 



MARGARET B O T T O M E 

I AM taking my New Testament very simply 
these days. His sayings are written and I 
am to do them, that is, I am to be obedient. I 
take the Sermon on the Mount and say, this is to 
be done ! I am to love my enemies, for instance, 
and I soon find I cannot do it. I cannot live free 
from anxious care, I cannot love disagreeable 
people, I cannot be pure in heart, I cannot rejoice 
when persecuted, and all the rest; I find it impos- 
sible. And yet only those who do as He said, are 
on the rock ! Then I go on in my New Testament 
and I find there is a power promised that will 
enable me to fulfill His commands. I find such 
strange words as "a new creature in Christ 
Jesus'\ and other mysterious sayings like / in 
Him, and He in Me. And I find that someone, 
yes more than one did do as He said. And then 
it comes to me that their Power may be mine too. 
And so my House stands, because it is built upon 
a rock I 



113 



HEART TO HEART LETTERS 

RUTHERFORD said, "Anworth (his 
parish) was not Heaven and preaching was 
not Christ." What is needed is to know our risen 
Lord; and the gift of Pentecost, which His rising 
from the dead secured us, can alone make 
us know the risen Christ, and the Christ 
within us. We know an historical Christ, 
and a sentimental Christ, but the Christ 
Who is the power of God to everyone that 
believeth, only the Baptism of the Spirit can 
enable us to know. I see so much in the words 
that ye may know Him and the power of His 
Resurrection. We cannot know nor endure the 
fellowship of His sufferings till we know the 
power of His Resurrection, by the Holy Ghost. 
In spite of the Church saying constantly / believe 
in the Holy Ghost, there is danger today of the 
Church rejecting the Holy Ghost, the indwelling 
Christ, as God's ancient people rejected Christ as 
the Messiah. What we need today is to listen to 
those last words ; Hear what the spirit saith unto 
the churches. 



114 



MARGARET B O T T O M E 

IT is a wonderful thing to be "alive unto God", 
and I believe it is the only way to be kept alive 
to every good thing that is worth anything. I 
meet so many lifeless people, and I believe it is 
the absence of God in them. We can so live in 
God that we are in touch with the past, the present 
and the future. I was thinking yesterday that the 
most interesting things are those that I have yet to 
see. The most of my life is before me, because 
life is not extension, it is satisfaction. Only think, 
we have never seen His Face yet, have never seen 
our dear ones in their new bodies, and we are to 
see the coming of Christ, we are to see Him take 
to Himself His Great Power, and reign from the 
rivers to the ends of the Earth. All this is before 
us and It is time to gird our bridal robes around 
us. Arise ! Arise ! Morning dawns ! 



"5 



HEART TO HEART LETTERS 

JUST at my right hand hangs a motto that 
someone gave me ; the letters, on a dark green 
background, all in silver: / will pour out my spirit 
upon all flesh. I am glad I believe it, and that 
there is no flesh left out. All fleshy that means my 
flesh. I used to sing 

Thou hast my flesh, thy hallowed shrine 

Devoted solely to Thy will. 

Here let Thy light forever shine. 

This house let all Thy presence fill. 

Thou source of life, live, dwell and move 

In me, till all my life be love." 

How glad I am I know the old Methodist hymns I 



ii6 



MARGARET BOTTOMS 

I HAVE no controversy with anybody in regard 
to doctrines, or forms, or dogmas. What I 
want is life, and I know Christ is the Life; and 
He is to be in us. I am glad I am on my way to 
the one Church, "the general assembly and church 
of the first born whose names are written in 
Heaven." I think the doctrines of my own 
church as pure as those of any other. Yet one of 
our ministers said last Sunday, that the different 
denominations of Christians were like separate 
pools, showing the tide has gone out. When the 
tide comes in, all will be one ! One church ! O ! 
how that ideal has flashed before me. Well, as 
Jean Ingelow says, all there is to know, that we 
shall know some day ! 



T17 



HEART TO HEART LETTERS 

I HAVE been much impressed with this word: 
Father the hour is come, when the Son of 
Man is to he glorified. He did not say crucified, 
though the hour had come for His awful suffer- 
ing; He saw only the glory that was to follow. 
And so it seems to me, we may say in all our hours 
of suffering, the hour is come in which I am to 
be glorified. Perhaps if you could see all the 
glory that is coming through your suffering of a 
present trial, nothing but the word "glorified" 
would be appropriate. 



ii8 



MARGARET B O T T O M E 

IF we are to go so soon (and we may go sooner 
than we think), to the Eternal World, then it 
is the only wise thing to find out what we can take 
with us, and cultivate what will "pass" there. And 
we have it in these words : have faith in God; hope 
thou in God; God is love. If you have Him, you 
have love. All of our life, all our disciplines, all 
our disappointments, everything that goes to 
make up our life, all are for the perfecting of 
faith, hope, and love. And we want to get every 
help within our reach, to aid us on these lines. We 
want to know the people who can help us to faith, 
hope, and love; we want to read the books; we 
want to do the deeds ; we want to use the stock we 
have, that we may increase our supply. One of 
the hymns my mother used to sing, ran : 

Help us to help each other Lord, 
Our little stock to improve, 
Increase our faith, confirm our hope, 
And perfect us in love. 

And when the mighty work is done, 
Receive thy ready bride. 
Give us in heaven a happy lot, 
With all the sanctified. 



119 



HEART TO HEART LETTERS 

WHAT Is the use of saying, Thy will he done, 
if we do not do it! I am not so afraid of 
agnosticism or any other "ism," as I am of being 
regarded as a Christian and not bein^ a Christian. 
To mean it when we say, "I believe in God the 
Father, and in Jesus Christ His Son"; that is to 
rejoice evermore. We are certainly not called to 
rejoice in ourselves, or In circumstances, but in 
God. I like to look at that picture of total finan- 
cial failure in Habakuk III., 17, and then hear 
him say: although all is gone, yet I will rejoice in 
the Lord; I will joy in the God of my salvation, 
and again to listen to St. Paul saying just before 
his execution. Rejoice in the Lord alway, and 
again I say, Rejoice! O! It Is royal! I see so 
often Christian women loaded with crepe, you 
would think they had never heard of Heaven, or 
did not believe that Christ had risen. O ! the joy- 
less faces, that give no hint of glad tidings of 
great joy to all people: that Is what makes infi- 
delity; that is what makes agnosticism. 



120 



MARGARET B O T T O M E 

' - ' ■ ■ 

WE had been talking about Christians, and 
by some law of association, as I took up a 
book, the same feeling came to me that I had 
as a child when I received my Christmas pres- 
ents. It passed from me instantly, leaving with 
me the consciousness that youth had gone; that 
some emotions would never come to me again. I 
can give you no idea of the pain that accompanied 
that consciousness; I have always been so youth- 
ful. And I sat still and thought, can it be pos- 
sible? Must I grow old? And finally I knelt 
and prayed. My deepest prayers have fewest 
words, but God saw it all and softly came this 
answer. 

Even to old age^ I am He! 

And I was saved. The thought that He did not, 
would not grow old, that I was His, seemed to 
renew my youth. 



121 



HEART TO HEART LETTERS 

MUCH of life Is in waiting; so we wait. A 
certain brotherhood in India have a re- 
markable motto which Is called their "secret." 
^ill and wait! And all you will and wait for, 
will come. I read of a curious incident where one 
of the "brothers" found a most unlikely thing 
which he had willed and waited for. And then I 
thought of the wonderful "secrets" the Elder 
Brother has given us. Alas ! that we should use 
them so little. All things are possible with God; 
and all things are possible to him that believeth, 
and He that believeth shall not make haste. 



122 



MARGARET B O T T O M E 

CHRIST is our Life. Not Church, nor 
Creed, but Christ, and He is a Life, and life 
means growth. And growth means that word so 
much used these days, environment, correspon- 
dence. I see no difficulty in our coming to see 
facts. We can easily find out, if we are honest, 
where life is, and a biologist would tell us what 
class we belong to. And the Bible, I am coming 
to think, is only scientific, when it says : that which 
is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is horn 
of the spirit, is spirit. A diamond may be the most 
beautiful of precious stones ; but it can never be a 
plant; it can never grow. And we find that the 
only real life is eternal life, and that means not 
simply living on but knowing someone, and that 
Someone, God! 



123 



HEART TO HEART LETTERS 

I AM glad the injunction is to save yourselves 
and those who hear you. For I doubt if we 
save others very much, if we are not straight be- 
fore ourselves. And I find, as I have ever found, 
that it costs to be saved ourselves. It is no little 
thing to be true to one's convictions. The old 
hymns come back with their full force; deeper 
than ever their meaning to me. 

This world is not a friend to grace 
To help us on to God ! 

And we want to be soldiers I and face the music I 
Nothing could be put more strongly than St. Paul 
puts the contrast between this world and that 
world (and both are here!) between this King- 
dom and that Kingdom; Christ's Kingdom and 
Satan's Kingdom. And as in our war, those on 
the border had the worst time of it; for they were 
neither on one side, nor on the other; you never 
knew whether they were Northern or Southern I 



124 



MARGARET B O T T O M E 

THERE Is such a meaning this morning in all 
the passages of Scripture that have the word 
"spirit" in them. What I should do now without 
a spiritual religion, I do not know. All the re- 
sources I used to depend on, seem to be cut off 
from me. Now where Is my supply to come from? 
I need companionship, inspiration, and must have 
it. If I haven't it, I can do nothing. If you say 
"Church," I haven't a church, or even a chapel 
in point of numbers. Well, have I inspiration? 
Yes! Am I lonely? No! God is a spirit! 

Where'er I seek Him, He Is found, 
And every place Is holy ground. 

And O! what a wonderful Cathedral I worship 
in, and the Bishop of Souls is the Bishop, and an 
innumerable company of angels, and the spirits 
of just men made perfect are there. And you 
know the Apostle does not say we may come, but 
are come to Mount Zion. O, the Church of God! 
the Holy Church, the Holy Catholic Church, the 
Communion of Saints. How they begin to come 
about me in spirit these days ! 



125 



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